Finally, An Answer! Kelly’s Journey

This story is one part of an ongoing series where NJ101.5 news reporter and anchorwoman Kelly Waldron chronicles her experiences after being diagnosed with Endometriosis. Follow “Kelly’s Journey.”

I had my two week post-op check up and I finally have some answers.  The pathology report came back and my uterus was filled with adenomyosis, which is what was originally suspected, but wasn’t detected on the MRI report.

Basically, adenomyosis is like “endometriosis of the uterus.”  The exact definition is a condition in which endometrial tissue, which normally lines the uterus, is present within and grows into the muscular walls of the uterus.  It’s most likely to happen late in childbearing years and after you’ve had children.  Adenomyosis isn’t the same as endometriosis, but it is extremely painful and hysterectomy is the only cure.

What a relief.  It’s good to know for sure that my pain was real.   In fact, the doctor’s exact words were, “No wonder you had so much pain.”  The doctor also said the cysts that were in the removed right ovary were benign.  So, that’s good to know as well.

With that said, she removed the stitches from the five incisions across my mid-section.  I mentioned getting back to work.  I told her I was originally aiming for June 1^st, but was hoping to go back a little earlier.  She said, “You absolutely cannot go back any earlier than June 1st.  You are still very swollen and still healing inside.  June 1^st will be the earliest that I let you go.  You have got to take it easy and you cannot overdo it.”

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It’s true.  My stomach is still very swollen.  I can’t get jeans on comfortably yet and I’ve been living in sweatpants.  It’s also tough to sit up straight for extended periods of time.  I’m ok if I’m leaning back a little, but upright isn’t very comfortable.  She said that will take time to continue to go down, but the key is to take it easy.  She’s given me the ok to walk a little bit, but getting back to any kind of exercise routine is definitely not ok yet.  She wants to see me in three weeks.  At that point, she said she’ll give me the ok to start back up, but slowly.

I’m a 40-year-old mother of two kids who works full-time.  So, when someone tells me to take it easy, that’s not exactly the easiest thing in the world to do.  I am going to try because I don’t want my progress to go backwards.  I want to be able to put this behind me and go back and be 100 percent when the time comes.